Talk:13 Lakes/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 15:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:38, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

Earwig finds no issues. Sources are reliable. The only image is appropriately licensed.

• What does it add for the reader to say that it is civil twilight (a term many readers will have to click on the link to understand)? We say the sun is rising (or setting) in each case. For Jackson Lake, wouldn't it be more informative to say that the sun comes up during the take? For Winnebago Lake, I'm not clear how you know the sun is setting -- the light quality doesn't appear to change significantly during the take.
  • Good point! I fixed Jackson. I removed the mention on Winnebago Lake—upon rewatching it the light does indeed not appear to change.
• For Lake Okeechobee, how do you know the train is a freight train? and that the noise is caused by rail corrugation?
  • Removed.
• "Snowy mountains align the skyline above the lake": not sure what the intended meaning is here, but "align" is not the word needed.
  • Reworded! Does "In the distance, snowy mountains rise up along the horizon, towering above the lake" make more sense?
• "because he held a personal history": odd phrasing. Perhaps just "because of his personal history with each of them"?
  • Done.
• "Benning has been known to hold a fondness for": wordy; can we make this just "Benning is fond of"?
  • Done.
• "13 Lakes was shot on 16 mm film, and, at 132 minutes,[a] it remains Benning's longest film to be shot on said film gauge": could be shortened, avoiding the awkward "said": something like "13 Lakes is the longest of Benning's films to be shot on 16 mm."
  • Done. Clearly I like overcomplicating things.
• "to be of an even longer duration": wordy again; just "to be even longer" would do.
  • Done.
• Is Ten Skies worth a redlink?
  • From a couple of thorough searches I could not find any RS reviews or significant coverage of it unfortunately. 13 Lakes steals the show.
• "3 Lakes has received critical acclaim." I would cut this. We have three critics praising it; "acclaim" implies something a bit more widespread than that.
  • Good point! Changed to "positive reviews" instead.
• "Similarly, Benning had regarded Ten Skies as a metaphor for peace." Surely we don't need "had"? We just said it was released contemporarily with 13 Lakes, so it would just be "regarded", wouldn't it?
  • Yes. Fixed.
• "Sources variously give 132, 133 and 135 minutes for the running time of the film." Can we cite these sources for this note?
  • Done. Removed 132 since I had taken that figure from IMDb.
• Spotchecks. Footnotes refer to this version
  • FN 2 cites "Scott MacDonald, writing in an essay for the National Film Registry, finds parallels between 13 Lakes and Benning's previous films 11 x 14 (1975) and One Way Boogie Woogie (1976), which both heavily feature landscape of the Midwestern United States. MacDonald regards 13 Lakes as the culmination of Benning's gradually increasing interest in testing the patience of the audience." I don't think this is fully supported by the source. MacDonald mentions the two previous films in summarizing Benning's previous oeuvre, in the opening paragraph. He mentions both films again in the second paragraph as having long-duration shots, but that's not the parallel you draw. And I don't see anything supporting "culmination"; it's the latest Benning film, and "an epitome of his commitment to a meditative and ruminative cinema", but I'm not sure we can get to "culmination" from "epitome".
    • Reworded. As for your second point in the second paragraph line seven MacDonald writes "Benning’s interest in moving the audience toward patience and more careful attention reached a culmination in 2004 with the diptych “Ten Skies” and “13 Lakes,” which are composed, respectively, of ten and thirteen 10-minute shots."
  • FN 6 cites "Benning continued to utilise long-duration shots in his minimalist films from the mid-1970s onwards." I don't have access to this source; can you quote the supporting text?
    • I decided to remove this sentence all together as redundant; I think the earlier "James Benning is an American independent filmmaker known for utilising long takes in his films" suffices.
  • FN 19 cites '13 Lakes, like Benning's other minimalist films, has also been positively compared to paintings and photographs of landscapes. Nikolaj Lübecker and Daniele Rugo note that 13 Lakes does not attempt to tell a concrete story and chooses instead to focus on the imagery of film itself; for them, 13 Lakes "might be a place where we find refuge in getting lost. Or, conversely, in finding one's bearings."' Can you quote this one too?
    • Done.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:17, 12 May 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Thank you for the review! I believe I have addressed your points. ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 06:37, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Your fixes all look good. FYI what I meant by quoting the text was just to post the text here so I could verify it, but adding it to the footnote as you have done is fine too, though if you want to remove it again that's also fine. Because we made a slight change in response to the spotchecks I spotchecked two or three more of the footnotes and they were fine. Two very minor points left:

• The quote in FN 19 needs an opening quote mark.
• There should be an ellipsis in the quote "an acknowledgment that art reflects human weakness" as the original is "an acknowledgment that art reflects (rather than transcends) human weakness". Or quote the whole thing if you prefer.

Neither of these is enough to stop me from promoting, so I'm passing this now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:49, 14 May 2023 (UTC)